More on compromise

E. J. Dionne is not so concise as his Washington Post colleague, but equally apt:

[Obama] summarized his approach this way: “[L]et’s live within our means by making serious, historic cuts in government spending. Let’s cut domestic spending to the lowest level it’s been since Dwight Eisenhower was president. Let’s cut defense spending at the Pentagon by hundreds of billions of dollars. Let’s cut out the waste and fraud in health care programs like Medicare — and at the same time, let’s make modest adjustments so that Medicare is still there for future generations. Finally, let’s ask the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations to give up some of their tax breaks and special deductions.”

That’s four sentences on cuts and barely one sentence on taxes, and not even tax increases as such — just a request that the privileged “give up some of their tax breaks and special deductions.”

On the other side are “a significant number of Republicans in Congress [who] are insisting on a cuts-only approach — an approach that doesn’t ask the wealthiest Americans or biggest corporations to contribute anything at all.” He went on: “And because nothing is asked of those at the top of the income scales, such an approach would close the deficit only with more severe cuts to programs we all care about — cuts that place a greater burden on working families.”

That happens to be true. The most remarkable thing about this whole debate (other than the dangerous foolishness of one side holding the nation’s credit standing hostage to get what it wants) is that Republicans have defined their party as being committed to low taxes for the wealthy above everything else. If anything good can come out of this strange episode, it is that no one will ever be able to doubt that proposition in the future.

GOP priorities ought to be perfectly clear:

1. Defeat Obama.
2. Appease the rich.

Today in compromise

Eugene Robinson sums up the debt ceiling debate:

If Obama took pains to sound reasonable, Boehner went out of his way to demonstrate that Republicans will not be reasoned with.

When stupidity just isn’t funny

Starting with the obvious: Most people who have cause to even remember her name tend to think former SNL gagster Victoria Jackson is nuts. The reasons why escape recall, since most don’t really care, anyway. But whether it was drugs in her heyday, the eventual feeling of rejection that comes when people realize they just aren’t funny, or some untold head trauma, the Victoria Jackson that has emerged in staunch opposition to President Barack Obama has either gone completely bonkers, or else is trying a new approach to comedy that just isn’t working.

We’ll go with Alec Jacobs‘ summary for The Daily Caller simply because it’s easier to read without making your head explode than the actual article.

In a column written for WorldNetDaily called “The 3 scariest things about Obama,” Jackson writes that Obama is a socialist “(like Hitler),” controls the media “(like Hitler)” and has the right to form a private army “(like Hitler)” according to a provision in the health care reform bill. (Former ‘Saturday Night Live’ star Victoria Jackson blasts ‘Glee’)

(The private army she refers to in the health care bill is actually a “reserve corps” of medical professionals who would act in medical emergencies and be involved with disease prevention.)

Other things Hitler and Obama have in common, according to Jackson:

• their fathers were communists and alcoholics;
• they both had white mothers;
• they moved often as young people;
• they changed their names (Jackson is likely referring to Obama going by a nickname, “Barry,” in his younger days);
• they both gave big speeches in large venues;
• they both had youth groups;
• they both “pretended to be ‘Christian’”; and
• they both advocated for population control.

Obama will destroy America! (Like you hadn’t already heard, right?)

I have this persistent nightmare that President Obama really is sinister, but the Tea Party still has it all wrong.  Every once in a while, the thought occurs to me, Why not give them what they want, let it all go to Hell, and settle this argument once and for all? But that is an awfully cruel outcome.

Still, though, what if President Obama really is a closet Marxist, and by giving over to conservatives damn near everything they want, he is setting up the United States for its grand and glorious collapse?